Inspection fees set to rise

If the Town of Cambridge passes the new fees at tonight’s council meeting, the council would receive about $60,000 a year for inspecting about eight verges a week.

The proposed changes came about after the Town discovered that the current fee of $55 was well below the cost of completing the inspection and subsequent administration.

Under the new fee structure, which was modelled on charges used by the City of Stirling, developments costing less than $20,000 would not require an inspection, but developments up to $100,000 would incur a fee of $110.

At last week’s agenda briefing, Mayor Simon Withers said he could not understand why the council would charge developers that much for an inspection that took only a few minutes.

‘How long does it take to inspect a verge? Why are we charging $220 to inspect a strip of land about as big as this table’